As discussed in the last post, the existence of the hackberry tree in my front yard, a contingent and conditional thing, ultimately depends upon the existence of an unconditioned and non-contingent thing. I also described how in like manner I can describe a chain of conditions for any contingent and conditional thing – a rock, a dog, a cow, an automobile, a person, etc. In each of these instances, we can arrive at a chain of conditions upon which its existence depends and that ends in a fundamental condition that is itself not contingent and not conditional.
So there cannot exist only contingent and conditional things in reality. Reality must also include at least one unconditioned and noncontigent thing.
What can we say about such unconditioned and noncontingent thing(s)?
First, we can say that it must be incapable of not existing. If it were capable of not existing, then it would be conditional and contingent. But as we have shown it is unconditional and noncontingent. Therefore, it cannot be capable of not existing.
Something that is not capable of not existing is termed “necessary being”. Necessary being then must be self-existent and self-sufficient.
Furthermore, there cannot be a time when necessary being did not exist. For if such necessary being had a moment when it began to exist, that would mean that its existence came from something outside itself. This would mean that it was contingent and conditional – depending on this outside thing for its own existence – and thus, would not be necessary being.
Likewise, there cannot be a time when necessary being ceases to exist. For if it was possible for it to not exist, it would be contingent and conditional and would no longer be necessary being.
In short, necessary being must have no beginning and no end.
So the real question becomes what is “necessary being”?
Modern materialism may answer that although individual things are contingent, the whole vast collection of such things taken in its entirety could be regarded as necessary. In other words, it is true that beings we experience all around us are contingent – animals, plants, rocks, humans, etc. But the universe as a whole can be regarded as necessary. That while the individual components and things contained within the vast universe are contingent, the universe is not. After all it is a scientific law that matter-energy cannot be created or destroyed. So is this matter-energy, the substratum common to all the existing things we observe in the universe, the necessary being we are searching for?
The answer, quite simply, is “no” for two reasons.
First, no collection or series of contingent beings, even if the series was infinite as regards time or space, could ever constitute a necessary being. If each member of the whole is contingent, then the whole, no matter its size or scope, does not contain within itself any sufficient reason for its existence – it simply cannot be self-existent.
Contingency is an attribute belonging to the essential nature of the object of which it is affirmed. Such attributes are predicable not merely of individuals but of the whole collection.
Likewise, the supposition that matter is the necessary being can be shown to be impossible. Matter is capable of receiving perfections that are not among its essential attributes. Matter can become a man, or gold, or a flower, etc. Each of these substances (man, gold, flower) has distinctive properties. But each of these properties is not essential to matter – for what is essential cannot be separated from it. So where do these properties come from?
Since they are not essential to matter, they must arise from the operation of some cause external to the matter.
This leads us to a principle of prime importance, i.e., whenever two things essentially distinct one from the other are found in union, this must be due to the operation of an efficient cause outside and other than the things themselves.
If two things essentially distinct, A and B, are found united or combined the reason cannot be found in A. “A” is the sufficient reason only for itself and its own essential attributes. Likewise it cannot be found in B.
For example, think of a triangle. No cause is needed to explain why a triangle should have three angles. The attribute of having three angles results immediately from the essence of a triangle as a plane figure bounded by three straight lines. You simply cannot have a triangle without three angles.
Now think of a wooden triangle. A wooden triangle is a composite reality. Wood is not triangular necessarily. Nor is a triangle necessarily wooden. The composition of these diverse elements, of necessity, supposes the operation of an efficient cause other than and outside the wood and triangle.
Necessary being is self-sufficient and self-existent. No agent can exist capable of conferring perfections upon necessary being. For this to be so, the agent must be other than and outside the necessary being. But such being other than and outside necessary being can only be contingent being. But contingent being owes whatever attributes it possesses in last resort to necessary being. Contingent being has nothing that is not already found in necessary being and cannot add anything to it. It follows then that matter which is a recipient for perfections cannot be necessary being.
Thus, necessary being cannot be a composite but rather, necessary being is absolutely simple. Also as we have shown, necessary being is not matter. Necessary being must then be immaterial.
“But”, it may be argued by some, “what if there are a plurality of necessary beings?” “Wouldn’t that invalidate the argument you just stated?”
A plurality of necessary beings is nonsensical .
Let’s suppose there are two necessary beings, A and B.
To be separate means they must in some way be distinct one from another.
To be distinct means that A must have attributes not found in the B.
But such attributes that provide this distinction are not essential to A – for if they were essential to the necessary being of A than they must, by definition, be found in the other necessary being B - which of course would dissolve any distinction.
Furthermore if the attributes are not essential to A, they must arise from a cause other than and outside A. But if A is necessary being than it is self-existent and self-sufficient– meaning that no agent can exist capable of conferring perfections upon it.
Thus the very nature of necessary being means that it can only be one.
Equally invalid is the pantheist contention (common to many Eastern religions as well as the New Age movement in the West) that contingent beings are merely modes of the one and all-inclusive Absolute - that they are manifestations of necessary being, and not entities possessed of a distinct though dependent existence. Here we may make appeal to the argument which we have just employed in regard of material substances. The contingent beings of experience are constantly undergoing changes and acquiring new perfections. This alone establishes that they are not modes of necessary being. A sheer contradiction is involved in the supposition that an agent exists, which can confer perfections on necessary being. Yet the acquisition of a perfection apart from an agent is, as we have seen, a metaphysical impossibility.
Thus we have shown in this and the previous post that there exists necessary being – that is non-conditional and non-contingent.
And that there is only one necessary being.
That this necessary being is absolutely simple, that is not a composite.
That this necessary being is immaterial.
And that this necessary being has no beginning and no end, that is eternal.
In the next post I will show two things:
1. The one, eternal, absolutely simple necessary being must be unrestricted in its power or act.
2. The one, eternal, absolutely simple necessary being is the continuous creator of all else that is.
